Patrick Piuze Montmains, Chablis Premier Cru, France 2023
Patrick Piuze- a Montreal native- took the region by storm when he arrived over decade ago. He worked for Leflaive, Jean-Marc Brocard and Jean-Marie Guffens before starting his own label in 2008, and has very quickly come to be counted among the legendary names of the region. Piuze works with purchased fruit, and his great relationships with the growers of Chablis have allowed him access to choice parcels in all of the great sites.
As for technique, he is a maverick. While 90% of Chablis is machine-harvested, he harvests everything by hand, a paramount factor in the quality of his wines. While most cellars use a pneumatic press, he uses a vertical one because he likes the initial blast of oxygen for the wines in hopes of preventing pre-mox later, a way of thinking also espoused by Jean-Marc Roulot.
Piuze now gets fruit from all three subclimates of Montmains: Butteaux, Forets, and Montmains. He gets fruit from a half a hectare and this wine tends to be the most austere of the three as there is very little topsoil and the vines grow right on the bedrock. The wine is fermented and aged entirely in neutral barrels.